It feels awkward sitting here looking at the World Series being played without my Dad in the room to talk about game.  My Dad and I always watched the World Series together.  The Kansas City Royals just scored in the the bottom of the second and the score is now 2-0 in favor of the Royals who are down 3 games to 2 in the best of seven series over the San Francisco Giants.

Dad and I did not always agree on what team should win…but we still had a good time watching playoff baseball.

I wonder, as I watch this,  if a young lad sometimes known as “Bunt Boy” in Amherst, New Hampshire is watching the game with his Dad…one of my friends.  They took me to see the Boston Red Sox this past summer.  I’m still coming to grips with the fact that I actually did see THEE Citgo gas sign beyond the left-center field wall of Fenway Park.  I wrote about this visit in one of my earliest posts on speaktherights.com.

I have always had a soft spot for the Royals.  Well, at least since 1979 I have had a soft spot.

Oops.  Blooper to right center falls fair and two more runs score.  Royals 4 Giants 0.

In 1979 I played for the Royals in the Brownstown Little League circuit.  I was eleven years old.  Looking back, I knew more about baseball now than I do now.  I must have.  How else could I have been the starting first baseman hitting #6 in the batting order?

There is a great deal of eye candy/junk in my home office.  I have book shelves that are very deep.  They hold many books…and they hold many artifacts…treasures…some junk.  One thing I am most proud of is the 1979 Brownstown Little League Champs trophy that sits in front of a framed picture of that team that appeared in the July 4th edition of The Brownstown Banner.  The photo was taken early in the season.  We won the the championship in the latter part of the month.

For me, it was a case of win the championship and move on without having a chance to enjoy it much with your teammates.

What do I mean?

Well…during the course of this summer baseball season my family moved from Brownstown, Indiana to Harrison County, Indiana.  My mother was wrapping up her job in Seymour where she worked as a registered nurse in a doctor’s office.  She would drive a very long way to work…some 60 miles…for only a few days.  When she did, she dropped me off at Mike Warren’s house.  Mike and I were both on the Royals.  His parents, Leroy and Sarah, were kind to me.  They treated me like their own.  I had known them a very long time.

That 1979 Royals team I was a part of did not lose a game.  We won them all.  As soon as our championship was over, I was in another county looking at my trophy without ever having the benefit of reliving the season with the ones I played through it with.  I still miss that.  But…of all the mementos I have on the shelves in my office, I look fondly upon that trophy.  We earned it.  This was before soccer moms imparted the need to give every participant a trophy thinking they were doing someone a favor.  We…The Royals…were the only ones to receive a 1979 Brownstown Little League Trophy…as it should be.

GRANNY

Carrie, my dear wife, and I stopped by to see Granny this evening.  Her sister, Lula Hodge, is here to visit her.  Aunt Lula and her two children, Nick Hodge and Lula Candler, brought her up from Shreveport, Louisiana to visit Granny.  As I mentioned in my last post, Granny is ailing.  Her prognosis is not good.  As I walked out the door leaving Granny and her sister, it hit me.  This was the last time I was going to see these two sisters in the same room together.  I shed a few tears.

Thanks to all of you asking about and praying for my Granny and my family.

I’ll leave you with a picture of me and my Granny last Christmas…along with my photo-bombing brother-in-law.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson